Coastal Louisiana residents who are threatened with massive increases in flood insurance rates because of rules Congress passed last year moved a step closer to a reprieve Thursday. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's amendment to prevent FEMA from raising rates on homes and businesses that were built to proper specifications but now are considered at higher risk because of new flood maps.

Under previous rules, those homes and businesses would have been grandfathered in and shielded from drastic rate hikes. But the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act, which Congress passed last year, did away with the grandfather provision.

That left some policyholders in Louisiana and elsewhere along the coast facing absurd increases in the cost of flood insurance.

The amendment to the Homeland Security budget bill that passed Thursday is similar to one that was adopted earlier by the House. U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy of Baton Rouge authored the amendment in the House, and officials from across South Louisiana asked Sen. Landrieu and Sen. David Vitter to back the amendment in the Senate.

Sen. Landrieu, who is working on a more comprehensive flood insurance solution, was in a good position to handle the amendment as chair of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. Her subcommittee approved the measure Tuesday, and then the full Appropriations Committee gave its blessing.

FEMA's new flood maps are problematic in some communities because the agency didn't take into consideration local or private levees that provide flood protection. The agency recently agreed to include local levees in its maps, but it is unclear how quickly that will happen or whether every community will get the benefit of the remapping.

"When people play by the rules and build their homes and businesses up to code, they don't expect to see their insurance premiums skyrocket," Sen. Landrieu said.

There are other efforts in the works to short-circuit the excessive flood rate hikes, but the amendment passed by the Appropriations Committee may be one of the quickest routes to relief. Now the full Senate ought to approve it as well.